foam magazine #17 / portrait?
books
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Joshua Lutz Meadowlands Meadowlands is the name of an exten-
Onaka Koji The Dog in France
sive area a few miles from Manhattan.
Onaka Koji is among those Japanese
The region depicted seems to be restless
photographers from the new generation
and yet laid-back, the suburbs next to a
who is waiting to be discovered outside
Moloch. Thus a gardener working next
Japan, and with any luck the reprint of
to a petrol station is a Sikh, and a body
Slowboat by Schaden.com will bring that
lying in a pool could be a corpse or a
about. At the beginning of the 1990s Koji
mannequin. Lutz is a graduate of ICP
went for a short trip to France, to flee
and Bard College; his photography com-
personal problems in Tokyo. He did not
bines a straight documentary approach
speak French at the time, nor did he have
with one that is open to anecdote and
any plans about what to do. The series
stories. Or rather, going through the
that emerged from this experience is
book, there’s no longer any difference
sentimental and melancholic in a way
between fiction à la DiCorcia, atmos-
that reminds me of Laurence Sterne or
phere à la Todd Hido or portraits à la
Robert Frost. Not that the images are
Sternfeld. The book comes in a very
literary, but the mood the traveller seeks
large format and is enticing to look at,
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is solitary and sensitive. In later works
inquisitive graphic-novel reader. This
Michael Subotzky Beaufort West
series, which was started ten years ago,
Beaufort West is a small town on a high-
book, because of the scope of Subotzky’s
beautiful, even inevitable. His images are
has been edited down to 50 images and
way in South Africa. The first image in
vision, his unflinching interest and the
dense, palpable, though neither over-
I feel the editors took care to choose
the book shows one particularity straight
empathy with which he portrays the
whelming nor particularly artistic. He is
images that are on a par with those of
away and refers to the main theme, the
lives of those about whom nobody cares
not unduly concerned with his personal
Alec Soth or other contemporary photo
prison right in the middle of the town.
or who have been left behind by progress
problems, and a picture of his drab hotel
graphers. I am not sure it helps bring out
By documenting the life of its guards
and society. The images are a compelling
room does not result in navel-gazing. His
the specific qualities of the work. On the
and inmates, Subotzky runs counter to
and disturbing mix of story-telling and
sentimental style never errs from the
other hand, the book has been hailed by
the inclusion/exclusion theme that is still
self-contained tableaux. And some of the
documentary approach he has learned
Vince Aletti as taking the new topo-
at work in South African society.
people portrayed respond to the camera
from his elders (his first exhibition was
graphics to another level, which is prob-
Subotzky’s images include a robbery
with an awakening openness that few
with the Camp group in Tokyo). This is
ably enough to make it a must-have.
about to happen, of a man and a woman
photographers are able to capture.
a small and extremely appealing book.
especially for the curious urbanist or the
Koji evades those dangers and today his photos have become simple and
having sex in the back of a truck, people
Powerhouse, 2008
getting drunk as well as quiet portraits
Chris Boot, 2008
Sokyu-sha, 2008
ISBN 2008060691
of prisoners. This is an overwhelming
ISBN 9781905712113
No ISBN
158